Welcome To My Kansas! This site will be about Kansas, its people and historical events. Like its sister web site (Civil War Days & Those Surnames), which deals with Surnames, so will this site. My field is military (Civil War) and surnames and what better place to hunt for this information then in my own state of Kansas.

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Stuttgart Kansas & Paul H. Bethke.

Stuttgart, Kansas, date unknown.
Push to enlarge.

Lately I been going through a lot of pictures of Kansas towns. What I find interesting is how barren the towns look, no trees of any kind, will hardly any. What I look for in these pictures is interesting buildings, but not for just any building. Buildings with signs that tells what the building was used for, and if I'm lucky there will be a name on the sign or building. If I'm lucky and there is a name I will research the name.

Not only is the building interesting to me, I would like to know something about the person who ran the business. Those of you who been to this site before knows it was built on the surname, and from time to time I put in a little Kansas history.

Take the above picture of the General Merchant store. It was ran by PaulH. Bethke, he was born in Minnesota in 1877, his wife Winne, was boon in Kansas in 1881, and their daughter Linda, who was born in Kansas in 1909. Little is known about him and his family. Its known that he was in business in 1905, and was the postmaster as the postmaster list below will show. He was in Stuttgart up till 1910. He left town sometime after 1910, as no other record can be found after that time.

You will note there's another Bethke on the postmaster list. she is not part of this family although she may be connected in some way as there were other Bethke's around.

Stuttgart Kansas.

Stuttgart, a country hamlet in Phillips county, is located in Mound township on the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific R. R., 7 miles west of Phillipsburg, the county seat. It has general stores, a mill and grain elevator, telegraph and express offices, and a money order postoffice. The population in 1910 was 125.

Stuttgart Post Office History.

Stuttgart post office opened on February 6, 1888, and ran to June 1, 1986, when to became a community post office, then closed on August 1, 2000.. Postmasters were; :

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About Me

I am from the great State of Kansas, and as of 2014 I am 68 years young. I have a wife and two children and two grandchildren. I now have four sites: 1. Civil War Days & Those Surnames 2. The History of Oakland, Kansas 3. The Writings of Dennis Segelquist. 4. Kansas and It's Surnames. Come over for a visit.